The invention concerns a disposable surgical cover having absorbent areas. Surgical covers of this type have a liquid-impermeable base cover material with a lower side facing the patient during use, and an upper side, wherein the upper side has an absorbent layer, a first absorbent area and at least one second absorbent area. The second absorbent area is thereby covered by a liquid-absorbent and liquid-permeable material section having peripheral edges and adjoining edge areas. The surgical cover as such extends in a longitudinal direction LR between an upper end and a lower end.
Disposable surgical covers include covers for any type of operation, which are intended for single use only.
Surgical covers are used for covering the patient in a sterile fashion during a surgical intervention. The essential properties of a surgical cover include a barrier function in view of germ tightness and liquid penetration resistance, and also sufficient material strength (tear resistance and tensile strength), moreover minimum dispersion of particles to the surroundings (linting exposure) and additionally microbiological purity. All these requirements are described in EN 13795 part 1 2003, part 2 2005, part 3 2006.
In addition to the above-mentioned normatively defined requirements, in practice the surgical cover must also fulfil the requirement for sufficiently good liquid management during the surgical intervention. In practice, a surgical cover should be suitable for surgical interventions which involve little amounts of liquid up to very large amount of liquids, often even involving torrent liquid volumes.
There are conventional surgical covers which include measures for improving the collection of liquid that is accumulated during an operation and leaves the field of operation.
The liquid absorptive capacity of the base cover materials varies greatly. When absorption is regarded as being insufficient, some areas of the surgical covers may be provided with absorbent reinforcements.
For example U.S. Pat. No. 3,902,484 discloses a surgical cover of a base cover material with a material section which is disposed on the upper side and consists of a foil layer bordering this upper side, and of an absorbent layer of foamed material.
There are also conventional surgical covers with an absorbent upper side and a single-layer absorbent pad that is fixed thereto by means of hot melt adhesive, applied in the form of strips.
In practice, surgical covers are mostly used in an inclined position during use. Despite the absorptive capacity of an absorbent material section that is attached to the base cover material, and also despite its lateral distribution capacity, the absorbed liquid wanders downwards by gravity to the lower edge of the absorbent material section during relatively long surgical interventions, and continues, following the base cover material, to the lower edge of the base cover material. That is where it starts to drip out of the surgical cover and contaminate the areas located therebelow and, in particular, i.a. the floor of the operating room.
In order to counteract this problem, the surgical covers are additionally provided with a separately attached specially constructed liquid-collecting bag for operations involving very large amounts of liquid, often with torrent liquid volumes. The disadvantage of this attached bag is mainly the bulky construction that impedes the work of the surgeon.
There are also integrally attached liquid-collecting bags. WO 02/41800 A2 and EP 0 631 760 B1 disclose surgical covers which have a groove that is open towards the operating field and is formed by folding part of a material section and fixing onto itself by means of hook/loop mechanisms or other detachable fixing means. U.S. Pat. No. 4,089,331 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,791,382 also disclose a surgical cover with a reinforcing section that is disposed around the operating window and from which a collecting groove is provided by folding the material section several times.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,464,024 discloses a reusable surgical cover with a liquid-collecting groove that surrounds and is open towards the operating window. This collecting groove is obtained by folding a liquid-repellent material section, which is disposed around the operating window, in the direction towards the operating window and partially fixing this material section onto itself.
WO 2006/0389948 A1 describes a surgical cover consisting of a central cloth section with operating window and two further cloth sections which are attached to the respective longitudinal edges of the central cloth section. The ends of the central cloth section are then folded and fastened onto the cloth section, thereby forming a cuff for collecting liquid.
It is the underlying purpose of the invention to improve a surgical cover of the above-mentioned type in such a fashion that it provides sufficient absorbent capacity for liquids and sufficient retardation of liquid leakage at the same time ensuring simple and inexpensive construction of the surgical cover.